My Online Summer

I encourage anyone who is teaching online, has taught online, or is contemplating teaching online to read "My Online Summer" by Jason B. Jones.  In this series of weekly articles written for The Chronicle of Higher Education Jason discusses his progress and what he is learning while teaching his first online course.
My Online Summer

Teach or Learn with your iPhone, iPad, (or iPod touch for that matter).

A few years ago I did a research study on the effectiveness of using iPod touches and instructional Math videos to increase math scores on the New York State 5th grade math assessment.  iPods were given to 5th grade students, who would use them to watch videos on math topics that they were struggling with.  The iPods acted as digital tutors for the students.  Now that my career path has taken me to Higher Education I try to see how iPods, and the newer devices, iPhones, and iPads can be beneficial to college students and professors.  What  is out there far surpasses anything that I was doing with the 5th grade students in my study.  Here is a list of iPhone and iPad apps that can be really beneficial to college students and educators.

iStudiez Pro – (app for students) Students can organize their schedule, plan their homework, arrange assignments and more.

Art – (app for students and professors) displays artwork and information about famous artists

Graphing Calculator (for students and professors) turns iPad into a graphing calculator

Math Ref – (for students) includes math formulas, figures, tips, and examples of the equations and concepts.

iHomework – (for students) students can keep up-to-date with their schoolwork, grades, to-do’s, and teacher information

Speed Anatomy (Quiz) – (students) tests knowledge of anatomy

iTranslate - (students) translates sentences into different languages and reads them back to you in that language

IFlipr Flashcards – (students) Students can create virtual flashcards on their iPad with any content they want.   

Blackboard Mobile - (professors and students) provides access to Blackboard features such as grades, announcements, discussion boards, course blogs, and all your Blackboard course content.

Fourpoint - (students) students can calculate their GPA in a course and it automatically updates as they add grades.

AlwaysOnPC  - (professors and students) access documents from your PC on your iPad.

WritePad – (professors and students) write on the screen and it converts your handwriting into text that can be dropped into documents and other apps

Numbers – (professors and students) a spreadsheet application, allows you to create spreadsheets, charts, tables, and graphs.

Pages – (professors and students) a word processing application

Keynote – (professors and students) a presentation application

iBooks – (professors and students) download books with this app.

Inkling – (professors and students) an eBook app that has unique features such as letting users discuss parts of text by highlighting sections and leaving comments for others to see, and displaying animated images in text.

For more resources read   "The iPad for Professors: Evaluating a Productivity tool After One Year" http://chronicle.com/article/The-iPad-for-Professors-/126885/  from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

If you know of any other apps not listed here or have apps for the Android Operating System, let me know.

Khan Academy: A One Man University Entirely On YouTube

Read this article written by Allison Yin from the Chronicle of Higher Education http://chronicle.com/article/College-20-A-Self-Appoint/65793/.  It talks about Salman Khan who quit his job as a financial analyst to make educational YouTube videos.  He calls his collection Khan Academy. 

Kahn's videos have hundreds of thousands of views and students rave that he makes learning the topics really easy  According to the article Khan's methods challenge university's beliefs that classes need to be taught in person, for hour long blocks, by qualified educators.  Mr. Khan has a vision of creating a middle and high school where students watch videos and complete self-paced quizzes to certify that they know the information. 

This article states that Khan's idea could change the way public schools are structured.  Do you agree with this? How do you feel about learning coming entirely from videos?  Post your thoughts.

A video Khan created about the phases of meiosis.

Web Site Design for Faculty and Students.

There are many tools out there to create professional websites, (Dreamweaver and Front Page to name a few).  There are also many tools out there to create classroom homepages and wikis, such as PB Works, and Wikispaces.  So far the only tool that I have found to successfully fit the need of both educators and students is Google Sites http://sites.google.com/.  Google Sites is an easy to use tool that provides a lot of options for creating dynamic websites.  Users can select from predesigned templates, such as classroom sites, portfolio sites, and project collaboration sites; or create their own web site from scratch.  Using this tool is as simple as using Microsoft Office tools.  There is a menu where users can add items (images, links, tables), and format objects such as text, and images.  Google Sites also provides the option of embedding videos from YouTube, and adding different apps such as a calendar, the weather, an MP3 player, a discussion board, etc.  Google Sites also has wiki functionality so that multiple people can edit a site.  Everything you create with Google Sites is automatically uploaded to the web once you save it, so you do not have to know anything about transferring files to a server or hosting a site.  Google hosts everything for you.

Here is an example of how to use Google Sites to create a course site: http://sites.google.com/site/csc170/

Here is a example of an electronic portfolio created with Google Sites: http://sites.helenbarrett.net/portfolio/

As a bonus, Google Sites has many templates to use in your personal life, such as family sites, wedding sites, and sites for groups and organizations. 
 

The Twitter Experiment - UT Dallas

Speaking of Classroom Response, check out this video of Dr. Monica Rankin from the University of Texas at Dallas.  Dr. Rankin shows how she uses Twitter for student participation and response during lectures.

Inspired by this experiment, a professor from STJ and I have looked into how Twitter can be use for responding to student's questions.  Professors can come up with keywords for each week of the course.  Students can tweet their questions categorizing them into topics by using the hashtag symbol and the keyword for that week.  The professor can then bring up the questions at certain times during the lecture and answer them. 

Student Response Does Not Have to Mean Clickers

Classroom Response Systems have really helped increase participation in class by changing the way educators ask questions and elicit responses from students.  Typically when one thinks of Classroom Response they picture students with Clickers sitting at their desk submitting their answers through a keypad, which submits their responses and displays results, usually in graph form, on the screen in front of the classroom.  Although faculty members may be interested in using this tool they are hesitant for a few reasons: (1) These devices cost money (faculty members pay for the receiver and students must pay fees for the keypad). (2) Students must be physically in the classroom near the receiver to respond to questions.  (3) Not all systems allow for non multiple choice responses.

A good alternative to clickers that I have found is the website called Poll Everywhere http://www.polleverywhere.com/.  This free site allows users to create and save polls for others to view and answer.  Professors can create multiple choice polls, free text polls, and goal polls.  Students can respond by submitting their answers on the website, texting their answers, or tweeting their answers.  Since polls can be displayed from the Poll Everywhere website, students don't have to physically be in the classroom to respond.  Polls can be embedded into PowerPoint presentations so that professors can poll students easily during class.  Although this site only allows 30 responses per poll educators can work around this by clearing results one they reach 30 or by creating multiple copies of a question.  I encourage you to use this tool and let me know what you think by commenting below.         
  

Teach in Your Pajamas



With the string of bad weather we've been having I have been holding a lot of my meetings virtually (using webcams, chatrooms, etc.). Faculty members at STJ are also thinking about how they can teach virtually while still making it feel like a face-to-face class. One tool that I recently found out about is Tinychat http://www.tinychat.com/ . In my opinion this tool beats out Skype and ooVoo because it allows 12 people to video chat, unlimited people to text chat, and has tools that allow you to share your screen, write on a shared whiteboard, and collaborate on a document. Just give participants a URL to your chat room and they are in without even having to create an account. Next time there is bad weather don't cancel class, move it to your computer.